TV on a computer

xterra48 · January 28, 2003 9:49PM

I am considering purchasing a TV adapter for my mac from ati. I have herd that these are fine in window form but full screen viewing is marginal. Can anyone give me an honest evaluation on weather this is worth it. Oh and this will not be my only cable source , I have a regular TV, but I think at this price point it would be a major convenience factor, and I already have the cable line next to my computer for the cable modem.

kidred · January 28, 2003 9:58PM

you'd have to splice the cable because it's used for your net connection. Splicing may also decrease your net connection speed. You may want to extend from a line not dedicated to the net and also, make sure you aren't feeding too many devices with your cable. They had to install a power booster for my signal with 2 TVs and my net connection.

As far as full screen, Apple has a $1999 solution that should play tv fine fullscreen

xterra48 · January 28, 2003 10:03PM

The problem is that I m considering this because it is CHEAP and MY EXISTING set up will work. And the problem with full screen resolution is not in the monitor but the brodcast, high resolution computer monitors LCD or CRT expose the flaws of old style low-resolution TV.

dogcow · January 28, 2003 10:23PM

I got an eyeTV from el gato software. I love it. As for full screen, yea its not as clear as you are used to on a computer screen. I currently have a TV right next to my iMac in my dorm room. If i set the TV on the computer to full screen and turn the tv to the same station then go back about 20 feet (as you would to watch real tv) they look exactly the same. If i set 12 inches from the computer screen when its full screen its really gross looking. The problem is that TV braodcasts at 640x480 and you're looking at a screen that has a much higher resoultion.

And KidRed is right, youwill have to run a new wire for your tlevision connection. Having your TV on the same connection as your internet will bring the internet to a crawl.

kidred · January 28, 2003 10:30PM

Do any of you guys have digital cable or HDTV? I do, so I don't think the fuill screen would be bad

That's why I want the 23" so I could get HDTV channels on my mac, hehe

aquatic · January 28, 2003 10:42PM

Yeah but how would you get that video into the computer? USB just wouldn't cut the mustard. Firewire/ FireWire2 eyeTV anyone?

They really should upgrade to FireWire. Why USB anyway? USB sucks. Eats CPU and it's from the Devil. I mean Intel.

kesh · January 28, 2003 10:44PM

[quote]Originally posted by xterra48:

I am considering purchasing a TV adapter for my mac from ati. I have herd that these are fine in window form but full screen viewing is marginal. Can anyone give me an honest evaluation on weather this is worth it. Oh and this will not be my only cable source , I have a regular TV, but I think at this price point it would be a major convenience factor, and I already have the cable line next to my computer for the cable modem.<hr></blockquote>

ATI? Is this that USB TV adapter? If so, you'd better be running OS 9. The device has no drivers for OS X.

alcimedes · January 28, 2003 11:06PM

[quote]And KidRed is right, youwill have to run a new wire for your tlevision connection. Having your TV on the same connection as your internet will bring the internet to a crawl.<hr></blockquote>

bah, i do this and it didn't do a thing to my 'net speeds.

it works just fine.

get a splitter and enjoy.

myahmac · January 29, 2003 2:58AM

what about a cheap all in wonder card. couldn;t you use an aold 128 all in wonder card for the tv input and then just use what ever graphics card as the output? because i am staring to get tired watching my roomates tv.

defiant · January 29, 2003 5:43AM

why not hook up a <a href="http://www.formac.com/p_bin/?cid=solutions_converters_studiodvtv"; target="_blank">studio dv/tv</a> from formac ? even doubles as VCR.

ghost_user_name · January 29, 2003 6:05AM

[quote]Originally posted by KidRed:

Do any of you guys have digital cable or HDTV? I do, so I don't think the fuill screen would be bad

That's why I want the 23" so I could get HDTV channels on my mac, hehe<hr></blockquote>

Ok, first off, and I think you know this, but Digital Cable, or DTV, is not HDTV. The few select areas that get HDTV content (HDNet Satellite for instance) require special boxes and special TVs that support High Definition. Again, this is different from Digital Cable.

I can say with one hundred percent certainty that nobody makes a HDTV adapter for the Macintosh to allow you to view native High Definition content on your machine.

A little background. Yes, the FCC is requiring 100% adoption of Digital Cable soon, but this is not HDTV. This is simply to pave the way for an all digital distribution of content. You'd be shocked at the number of people in the professional video world that think DTV means HDTV. Unfortunately, we're a ways off from widespread HDTV adoption. It's getting there, but it is still a niche market.

ghost_user_name · January 29, 2003 6:06AM

[quote]Originally posted by myahmac:

what about a cheap all in wonder card. couldn;t you use an aold 128 all in wonder card for the tv input and then just use what ever graphics card as the output? because i am staring to get tired watching my roomates tv.<hr></blockquote>

ATI does not support video capture under OS X. So unless you're still using Mac OS 9...

ghost_user_name · January 29, 2003 6:15AM

[quote]Originally posted by Dogcow:

I got an eyeTV from el gato software. I love it. As for full screen, yea its not as clear as you are used to on a computer screen. I currently have a TV right next to my iMac in my dorm room. If i set the TV on the computer to full screen and turn the tv to the same station then go back about 20 feet (as you would to watch real tv) they look exactly the same. If i set 12 inches from the computer screen when its full screen its really gross looking. The problem is that TV braodcasts at 640x480 and you're looking at a screen that has a much higher resoultion.<hr></blockquote>

I'll admit, I haven't actually used a TV adapter since ATI's 128 VR. On the 128VR, even if I scaled the input up to 1280x1024, I couldn't tell a difference between viewing it at that resolution and viewing it at my monitor's 640x480 setting. This is because broadcast television is interlaced, therefore making the scaling of the content easier. It will always look different on a progressive scan display, but there is no reason why it shouldn't scale fine.

And not to be picky, but broadcast television's resolution is a bit higher than 640x480 to account for added content being streamed with the signal, like CC.

[quote]And KidRed is right, youwill have to run a new wire for your tlevision connection. Having your TV on the same connection as your internet will bring the internet to a crawl.<hr></blockquote>

I don't think this is a problem. Your cable modem is capable of what? 12Mbps? Your ISP surely caps that, as mine is 3Mbps down, 1.5Mbps up. But that's irrelevant. If you get a splitter (My ISP installed one for me when my service was installed) you shouldn't notice any performance hits at all. Cable is a broadcast medium.The signal just goes into your TV, then back out and down the pipe to your cable modem. If you start to do a lot of splits, and run cable over long distances, then yes, a Distribution Amplifier might be necessary. I don't think your cable connection is going to see any performance hit at all.

We could talk about a hit in the image quality of your television. I mean, using low quality cable will easily impact that. But with most consumer sets, you can't tell the difference anyway. The impact of using a splitter will be marginal at best.

dogcow · January 29, 2003 10:05AM

Hmm, i could be wrong about this, but the eyeTV uses no where close to the full usb connection speed, making a firewire version compleatly pointless seeing as your video is only going to be as good as a TV anyway.

I had a cable connection running to my cable modem for internet. I got a TV and wanted cable on that, so I got a spliter and set up my TV with the cable modem. As a result the TV quality degraded and the internet was no where close to what It was. Apparently the cable company installed a filter type thing in my basement on the line making it only for Internet. So i put the spliter on the clean wire from the street, before any other connections, and then ran another wire to the TV. This worked great, with picture quality and internet.

xterra48 · January 29, 2003 10:44AM

There seems to be much disagreement about if i can just split the line to my cable modem and still get 1 fast internt and 2 Tv. I dont think that there is a filter in my lime for the cable modem. And i have three TV's and a cable modem, so i guess i have a booster.

ghost_user_name · January 29, 2003 10:48AM

[quote]Originally posted by Dogcow:

Hmm, i could be wrong about this, but the eyeTV uses no where close to the full usb connection speed, making a firewire version compleatly pointless seeing as your video is only going to be as good as a TV anyway.

<hr></blockquote>

I think the working theory behind firewire would be to make sure you don't get anywhere close to exceeding the bandwidth. If you're running USB speakers, a USB hard drive, and the USB TV tuner, can you get close to saturating the bus?

I don't know, i don't run that much USB stuff...

xterra48 · January 29, 2003 11:03AM

Here is my system:

CAble split1 Amplifier 3way split for tv's

----------[_____________#_________{

At split 1 my cable modem branches off, At 3 way split my TV's get acces after amp. CAN i work a split on the cable modem line to watch tv

aquatic · January 29, 2003 11:24AM

Exactly M3DJack, I have a scanner, wireless mouse, Keyspan remote, USB hub for all that plus MIDIman MIDI box, my digitial camera, etc. Plus USB eats CPU, and might stutter since it has no where near the continued throughput of FireWire. Besides when HDTV finally comes through you will most certainly need FireWire or FireWire 2. And those boxes will have FireWire ports! So we might not even need a video capture card, just software!!!! Won't that be cool! Just one FireWire cable and you can record HDTV...

TV on a computer

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